


teen wolf amnesty: a work in progress

by verity



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - No Werewolves, Alternate Universe - Porn, Alternate Universe - Still Werewolves, Alternate Universe Aplenty, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-07
Updated: 2014-11-07
Packaged: 2018-02-24 10:11:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 16,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2577779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verity/pseuds/verity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This work is a collection of long-ish WIPs that I have finally accepted I am never going to finish, but which I like enough to want to share in part. If you enjoy Derek/Stiles or eternal tears about unfinished works, these may be for you!</p><p>includes: porn AU (werewolves), circus/yoga AU (no werewolves), Ring of Swords fusion (alien werewolves), many Dereks (not an AU), hipster AU (no werewolves)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. the pack next door

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to Ashe, Scout, tiac, and the many other people who audienced these as I worked on them <3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the porn AU where Derek and Stiles are not the porn stars (but are super cute together)

**As Circulation Falls and Video Sales Boom, Adult Magazines Struggle to Change With the Tide**

…"Print is dead," said Ms. Hale, _NECKZ 'n THROATS_ heir. "We're going digital."

 _The New York Times_ , October 7, 2011

 

(1)

Laura starts this week at 9 AM on Monday in the NECKZ 'n THROATS office in New York and finishes it at 5PM on Friday at the office in Los Angeles. as she has every week for the past two years. "Come on," she says to Derek at 5.02pm, plopping down on the corner of his desk. "We're getting dinner."

Derek runs the LA branch of NECKZ from Monday through Wednesday. On Thursdays he overlaps with Laura, and on Fridays, he does all the shit Laura dumps on his lap because she doesn't want to do it. Like staying until midnight on Fridays in case something on _The Pack Next Door_ needs immediate media triage after it airs on the west coast.

"It'll have to be fast," Derek says, scooting his chair back from his desk. "Scott and Allison are on _Paige_ at 6."

Laura sighs. "Ugh, right, I forgot about that."

Danny, their web developer, pokes his head through the door. "I'm ordering sushi. You in?"

They're working on rolling out a new feature on the website and Danny has ordered sushi every night so far this week. And last Sunday. "Shrimp tempura," Derek says, resigned.

Laura cocks her fingers at Danny. "Rainbow roll me. I'm feeling a celebration coming on."

—

 _The Pack Next Door_ airs on Friday at 10PM EST/9PM CST and again at 10PM on the west coast. The show comes on E! right after _Paige_ , so Derek gets a double whammy of self-hatred and disgust every week when he turns on the TV at 6.55PM. Paige gets more gorgeous and confident every year, her talk show's ratings climb higher, and she'll probably have a daytime show on a major network in another year or two. Maybe before _The Pack Next Door_ goes off the air.

Laura never thought it would last more than one season in the first place, which is why she blithely signed off on it despite the fact the LA office is literally the _other_ pack next door. 

To the Hale Mansion.

To Peter's arm candy.

To Peter.

—

Peter apparently watches episodes of _The Pack Next Door_ in the media room with his nubile boys and girls draped over him, puppy piling on the giant nest in front of the projection screen. One house over, Laura, Derek, and Danny crowd into what used to be the living room and is now where they shoot most of the threesome videos because it's big enough for a real multi-camera setup. Derek throws a tarp over the California king bed and everyone with supernaturally enhanced senses tries to tune the smell out.

Today, they have some extra company.

"Don't steal all the tamago again, " Isaac says, pointing his chopsticks at Laura. "I know where you sleep."

Isaac is wearing gold spandex short-shorts, aviators, and a scarf. He looks like an American Apparel ad, which is fair considering that he is one during the 302 days a year NECKZ Digital pays him _not_ to fuck on camera. Like Scott, Allison, Jackson, and Erica, he has an exclusive contract; unlike the other stars of NECKZ Digital, he hangs around the office all the time. Sometimes he answers the phone. Today he's sitting in Stiles's lap and feeding Stiles random bites of sashimi.

"You think I sleep," Laura says. "That's cute."

"That's sad," Stiles mumbles through a mouthful of fatty tuna.

Stiles is NECKZ's transmedia consultant. Derek doesn't really know what that means. Mostly Stiles comes into the office to harass Danny or prank Scott; he seems to travel almost as much as Laura. Last year, Derek almost hooked up with him at the New Year's Eve bash at the Mansion, but they ended up passing out in the peacock hutch. The morning after was not one of Derek's finer moments.

"Allison said she talked about her pussy," Erica says, checking her phone. "The silicone one, I mean."

"Good, good, we need to start moving more merch." Laura rolls over onto her stomach and pillows her head on her arms. "Wake me up if anything exciting happens."

—

The setup of _Paige_ is typical pseudo-intimate talk show, a comfortable taupe sofa slanted toward the audience, Paige sitting in a matching chair at a complimentary angle. Scott and Allison alternate between turning toward her and looking out at the audience as they answer questions. They're practiced, the best at media on NECKZ Digital's roster, Laura's stars. Scott was well-known even to mainstream audiences before he signed with NECKZ Digital, and Allison's—Allison. Beautiful, articulate, magnetic. Right now, she's snugged up next to Scott on the couch, leaning into the arm he's thrown over her shoulder while Paige asks her about the limited-edition silicone replica of her vagina that sold out in 27 hours last week.

"I know that you recently did an interview with _Rookie_ , the online magazine for teen girls, " Paige says. "How do you reconcile being a role model for young women with, literally, selling your body?"

Allison leans forward. "Those young women are eventually going to be sexually active if they aren't already, Paige. I want them to be able to make informed choices about what they do with their bodies, who they do it with. Why aren't you asking Scott the same question? His dick's for sale, too. It was Fantasia's bestselling model last year. Women made that happen."

Scott waves at the camera. "And dudes. Thanks, guys."

Allison glances over to smile at him, quick and affectionate, before she turns her attention back to Paige. "It's my body—I get to decide what to do with it. The only difference between having sex on camera and reality TV is that porn is skilled labor."

And that's when _Paige_ cuts to a teaser for the next episode of _The Pack Next Door_.

—

"Oh my god," Laura says after Danny prods her awake. "I'm gonna kill somebody. I'm gonna kill somebody with my teeth."

 

(2)

Laura falls asleep again on the couch in Derek's office around midnight. Derek, on the other hand, is still up at 2AM because the social media intern in New York punked out and went to bed, and everyone else here went home.

Except for Stiles, who is sprawled out next to him on the threesome bed downstairs, eating Doritos he found somewhere in the kitchen. "I think I'm still on Brisbane time," he says, crunching. "Wait, don't tweet that, dude. Stop. Hand the phone over to me, I'm confiscating it."

Derek lets Stiles tug his phone out of his hand. "Why were you in Brisbane?"

"You guys aren't my only client, come on." Stiles squirms over into Derek's space and throws a leg over Derek's hip. "Just my _favorite_ client."

"Danielle just wants you to get naked," Derek says.

Stiles sighs. "I don't want to get naked for Danielle."

Even through the tarp, the threesome bed smells like Erica squirted beneath Derek's shoulder and several someones jizzed directly above his head, probably because that spot has a good angle for close-ups on cumshots. Derek has been awake for nineteen hours, his ex-girlfriend just threw a molotov cocktail onto the embers of dynastic Hale drama, and Derek feels like making some questionable decisions. 

But not on the threesome bed.

"There's a futon on the third floor that no one has fucked on for work," Derek says, grinding up against Stiles, just a little bit. "Do you want—"

"That's so _far_ ," Stiles whines.

When Derek kisses him, Stiles tastes like stale Doritos, which, really, Derek should have expected. Stiles is a really good kisser, though: not too pushy, but eager, open to getting a little sloppy. Derek runs one hand up Stiles's back beneath his shirt, tugs Stiles on top, and they make out for a while like that, hungry but not urgent, Stiles's dick pressing against Derek's thigh. 

Then Stiles lifts his head and says, "I know you want to do it."

"What," Derek says.

Stiles rolls his eyes. "Don't fuck around. You want your mouth on me, I know it. My—" He gestures to his neck, the long, sleek expanse of skin dotted by a constellation of moles, the kind of softcore porn Derek's mother built a media empire on. Stiles could be a centerfold for NECKZ, but instead he does something that involves carrying two phones and an iPad around all the time, and almost fucking Derek in inconvenient places while they're drunk or tired.

"Upstairs," Derek says. "Now."

—

They don't make it as far as the futon. Derek blows Stiles in the second-floor bathroom, backed up against the linen closet, his fingers digging into Stiles's hips as he takes Stiles in as much as he can, lets Stiles fuck his throat until he can barely breathe. After, Derek mouths Stiles's neck while Stiles jerks him off, sucking marks there that bloom dark on Stiles's pale skin. Derek has to sit down on the cold tile of the floor after he comes, dizzy with orgasm and the exhaustion suddenly settling on him like a wet blanket.

"Are we like werewolf-engaged now?" Stiles says, fingers prodding the mottled skin on his neck as he examines the aftermath in the mirror. The bruises are deep, they'll last for days. Derek doesn't know what the fuck he was thinking. "I don't know how this works."

"You've never fucked a werewolf before?" Derek says. 

Stiles raises an eyebrow at him. 

"No," Derek says grudgingly.

Stiles shrugs. "I'm going to have to wear a scarf." He sounds satisfied.

—

It's 3AM. Stiles doesn't go home. Instead, he follows Derek upstairs in search of the futon that used to be in Cora's room years ago. The sheets in the linen closet smell a little musty, but they're clean. Stiles waits for Derek to get under the covers before he shucks off his shoes and socks and climbs in after him, throws himself half on top of Derek, and says, "Night."

"Night," Derek says. He's too tired to try to figure any of this out.

 

(3)

"Derek," Laura says.

Derek opens one eye. He's alone in bed, the sun is shining through the blinds, and Laura is wearing the same aggressively tailored red skirt suit she was wearing last night. "Laura."

"Stiles had to fly out to Atlanta this morning," Laura says. "He says he'll be back tomorrow. If he quits because of you I'll murder you to your face."

"Is there coffee?" Derek says.

There are some organic, direct-trade Guatamalan beans that someone tried to hide in the back of the freezer, so Derek finds the grinder and cues up the drip brewer while Laura makes Toaster Strudel. She squirts the little cream cheese packet onto her strawberry pastry somberly and spreads it around with her finger. "I'm not even mad at Allison," Laura says. "That's the worst thing, you know?"

Derek glances out the kitchen window onto the broad, grassy back lawn of the mansion next door, where the groundskeeper is trying to herd a pride of peacocks awake from the rose bushes. "Paige?"

Laura licks some stray frosting off the back of her hand. "She didn't pull that all on her lonesome, and it's ratings, ratings, ratings, baby. But if she had—"

"I don't want to talk about this anymore," Derek says to the carton of half-and-half in the fridge.

—

Paige is the only one of Derek's girlfriends that Peter hasn't stolen. No, Derek fucked up everything up there on his own well before Peter ever made a pass at her. After the bite healed and the dust cleared, Mom hooked Paige up with a pack in Chicago and an internship on _Oprah_ , and that was that. If Paige is still holding a grudge, well, Derek doesn't blame her.

"Hey, you're here early," Erica says, striding into the kitchen in lucite platform heels and a g-string. "Or late, I guess." She trots over to the counter to pour herself a cup of coffee. "Did you sleep here?"

"Oh, one of us did," Laura says.

"I slept—" Derek says, and great, now both of them are staring at him. "Can I go home now?"

Erica pats him on the back. "I'm just getting gangbanged by the boys today. You can watch with Kira later."

There are some paparazzi sort of half-assedly parked near the Mansion, but it's Saturday morning, they're probably staking out Tara Graeme's place around the corner. It's not like Derek's any particular prize: he's lower than Greenberg across the street on the celebrity ladder. Derek takes the long way home so he can swing by the cronut place on his way to Santa Monica. 

—

Cora calls him at midnight on Sunday and says, "The peacocks are out."

"Yes?" Derek says slowly. He was reading _The Corrections_ , but at some point in the past two hours he fell asleep with the hardback on his face. His nose hurts.

"I need you to get them in," Cora says.

Derek rubs his nose. "You have a groundskeeper. You have four werewolves in the house—"

"They like you," Cora says, and hangs up.

—

Derek does not work for Peter, who is supposedly retired and merely the "guest editor" of _NECKZ 'n THROATS_ the languishing print periodical. Peter owns enough stock that he's still on the board of the company, but most of the time he lives in the Mansion—Derek grew up in the comparatively modest house next door, out of which they're now operating a porn studio—and throws parties and films his reality show. Sometimes Peter does vodka endorsements in his habitual smoking jacket: _a drink with teeth for a man with taste_. The magazine runs them.

Derek does not work for Peter, but Cora is Peter's business manager, and if his sisters call, Derek answers.

When Derek pulls into the driveway next door, he can already hear the loud, drunken bustle of the party raging next door punctuated by angry avian screams. So, someone mistook the peacock hutch for the pool house, a tool shed, somewhere good enough for a quick fuck—it's not like Derek's never made that mistake before. The peacocks are distressed, out on the lawn, congregating near a buffet table where someone has already tipped over a plate of crackers. 

"Come on, guys," Derek says to the birds after he lets himself through the side gate, ignoring the partygoers. He's in sweatpants, a shirt, he's dressed; he's going to wrangle some peacocks and go the fuck home. "Come on. Let's…" He grabs a handful of crackers and does his best to crush them into crumbs. "Dinner time? Snack time? Something?"

The bird next to Derek shrieks. Another tries to eat his pants.

At least they aren't goats.

—

Cora meets up with Derek at the hutch after he's herded the peacocks in. She has her hair up, and her dress has a comparatively modest hemline, enough to suggest that this is a work event for her. "Good job," she says, socking him in the arm hard enough to bruise. "I should hire you."

"You couldn't pay me enough," Derek says.

Cora's mouth twists. "I know."

They walk out toward the drive, the remains of the crumb trail crunching under Derek's sneakers and Cora's high heels. The twins are over by the pool with umbrella-laden drinks, flanking his uncle. They're tan, muscled, bland trophy ass, equally interchangeable and obnoxious; Peter is—Peter. The peacocks are better company.

"Call if you need anything else," Derek says when they reach the gate. 

"Thanks," Cora says. She reaches out and touches his arm, gently this time. 

Derek's ready to head back home and try to care about Jonathan Franzen, or at least sleep some more, but the porch light is on at the other house. There's someone there on the steps, hunched over, wearing a hoodie. Fiddling with an iPhone.

"Stiles?" Derek says, walking over.

Stiles looks up, frown smoothing into a smile. "Oh, hey. I lost track of time—thought Scott would still be here. Do you mind if I crash on the couch or something?"

Derek drops down next to him. "Were you going to sit out here all night?"

"Nah, I was—I texted Scott, or I can get a cab, I—" Stiles says, shaking his head, rubbing at his eyes, the dark hollows beneath them. "I can get a hotel, I guess."

"Shut up," Derek says. "You're coming home with me."

—

Stiles kisses Derek when they get out of the car, traps him against the door, caging Derek in with his hips. "Aren't you tired?" Derek says, breaking away to nuzzle under his ear. "Don't you want to sleep?"

"No," Stiles says.

Upstairs, though, he droops beneath the weight of the artificial lights. They end up exchanging sleepy handjobs in bed with spit-slick palms, and Stiles tips back his head against the pillow when he comes, exposing the marks Derek left on his neck two nights ago. Some of them are already starting to fade from deep red to a mottle purple. Derek can't help but retrace his steps with his lips while Stiles jerks him off and says, "Yes, yes, do it."

—

Stiles is still there when Derek wakes up this time, eating a bowl of Frosted Flakes at the kitchen table. He doesn't look up from his iPad, but he gives Derek a little wave when Derek comes in.

"Are you in with us today?" Derek doesn't remember Stiles being on the calendar, but who knows, what with Friday's clusterfuck.

"Nah," Stiles says. Something on his non-Apple phone dings. "I have a flight to SFO at noon, I'm going to be up there all week. Friday?"

"Sure," Derek says. "Um—sounds good."

 

(4)

"So, I have some bad news," Danielle says Thursday morning, glancing between Laura and the webcam. Danielle runs the New York office, home to _NECKZ 'n THROATS_ magazine and various subsidiary media properties. "HarperCollins gave Kate a tell-all book deal."

Laura flinches, then visibly collects herself. "Have you told Peter yet?"

Danielle shakes her head. "He knows half the staff of Harper, though. No secrets there."

"Well," Laura says. She sighs. "This isn't the end of the world. What's the worst that's going to happen, a libel suit?"

Derek groans and drops his head into his hands. 

"Oh, honey," Danielle says, like she's already sent a minion out to PaperSource for a sympathy card. 

—

When Derek steps out into the hallway, Kira is doing pull-ups on the bar in the doorway of the office she shares with Danny. She's short, and so is the bar; Derek's always smacking himself in the face when he forgets to duck. "What happened?" she says, biceps curling on the rise up. "Did someone die?"

"I wish," Laura calls from the main office.

Kira drops to her feet and rubs her hands against her shorts. "Peter?"

"I don't want to talk about this," Derek says, which is how he ends up watching cat videos on YouTube with Kira on her big editing monitor. Her office used to be his parents' bedroom before they died in a fiery wreck on the 1; it has a massive bathroom with a jacuzzi and closets with more than enough room to store all of the rigging and A/V equipment. They kill the hour until call time watching Maru wrestle with boxes.

—

As soon as they set foot downstairs, Kira is in full director mode. Caitlin has already set up first and second camera and lit the set, but Heather is still running through soundcheck. In the corner, Jackson is touching up the contouring on his neck in the mirror. "Chill out," Kira says, tugging the bronzer palette away from him. "We can tell you have a chin, you don't want to look like you have a rash."

They're shooting a classic revenge scene today: Jackson's been very, very naughty, and Erica and Isaac are going to punish him. Isaac wolfed out for makeup; Erica has her claws fully extended and polished hot pink to match her strap-on, so the boys are probably going to be doing most of the manual labor. She's currently lying on the threesome bed, making exaggerated moans while Heather adjusts the levels on the new boom mic. "Do you get to plow me with that, too?" Isaac says, sprawling next to her, then squealing and rolling away when she startles tickling him with her talons.

" _Next time_ ," Kira says. "We're rolling in five, guys. Don't make me separate you."

"Oh, I'd be down for some electrical play," Erica says, lashes fluttering.

Derek dodges tripods and a basket of lube packets on his way to the kitchen and craft services, also known as someone's trip to Costco. He's two slices deep into a massive berry pie when Boyd drops into the chair across from him. "I'm sorry, man," Boyd says. "I heard the news."

"Is it everywhere?" Derek says.

Boyd shrugs. "Twitter. TMZ. Enough places."

Unlike everyone else on set today, Boyd doesn't work for NECKZ Digital. He's a PhD candidate in Chemistry at Caltech, Derek's fraternity brother, and Erica's boyfriend. So he's probably here to— Derek sighs. "What did Erica need?"

"I left my phone in her car," Boyd says, cutting himself a piece of pie. "But I thought I'd come in and give my condolences."

"No 'I told you so'?" Derek says.

Boyd shrugs. "You said it, man."

—

Derek was a freshman at UCLA when he met Kate. His parents had been dead for three months and he'd just gone Greek, so he was drinking a lot of cheap beer that went through him like water and smoking wolfsbane-laced blunts that made everything hazy around the edges. Kate was a senior with a good supply; Derek didn't ask a lot of questions. He brought her home for Thanksgiving— _I'm not close with my family_ , she'd said wistfully, and Derek barely had one—and introduced her to Peter.

He spent Christmas day baking pot brownies with Laura and eating them in front of a marathon of _A Christmas Story_ on TBS while Cora worked on her vacation reading assignment at their feet. Their parents were dead; there were no presents. Peter took Kate to Bali.

—

Laura comes down to watch the end of the shoot, when Kira has given in to Isaac's doe eyes and let Erica peg him while he fucks Jackson's mouth. "This is good," Laura says to Derek as Caitlin gets up in their space with a handheld camera, slowly panning down from Erica's glossy mouth on Isaac's neck to Jackon's helpless surrender. "We don't have anything like this on the site so far."

Supernatural porn has heavy crossover with the human alt porn genre—Allison was a contract performer for Vivid before Laura snapped her up—but NECKZ Digital tends to stick to the spirit of the periodical, sensual softcore with a lot of heavy airbrushing, highlighted collarbones, and pendulous breasts. However, the longer the contract cast works together, the more their personalities come out on screen. Jackson wants people to force his beta ass to submit, Isaac wants everyone to treat him like a prized fucktoy, Erica demands worship, Scott wants to share the gift of his dick, and Allison… 

Laura's phone pings, and she tilts the screen toward Derek so he can see Allison's text: _fangplay w/ Erica next week y/n? :D_ "What do you think about that?"

"It's not like she can turn her." Derek sits down next to Laura on the futon opposite the threesome bed. Generally, he tries to stay out of this stuff. He has a degree in accounting, not PR/AD; he doesn't know shit about what conflicts with the NECKZ 'n THROATS brand or what their viewers want. "I think they signed waivers for that."

"I'll check with Deaton," Laura says. She sighs. "I need to talk to him about the possibility of a libel suit anyway."

Derek raises his eyebrows. "You think we're getting involved with all this—?" He nods toward the window, toward the honking peacocks behind them.

"For _you_ ," Laura says. "Like, Jesus, I can't fucking imagine what's in that book."

"Oh," Derek says.

Loudly, Kira clears her throat. "Okay, guys, save it for the cumshot. Switch positions, I want you to get Erica to squirt now."

—

"'Kate Argent throws gasoline on the fire of the Hale-Argent feud?'" Erica says. She's on her phone, still naked in bed, with Jackson's head pillowed on her thigh. He's so fucked out that he hasn't even started complaining about how the facial he just got has fucked up his makeup. "Is that really what TMZ is going with?"

Isaac dabs at the jizz that splashed on his stomach with a baby wipe. "Since when is it a _feud_?"

"Allison was not even talking shit," Caitlin says. "She was totally provoked. I watched that clip."

Kira and Heather are listening to the playback from the new mic, ignoring them. Derek is eating more pie. He has werewolf metabolism, he'll recover from eating his feelings. Laura is upstairs, on the phone with Deaton, NECKZ 'n THROATS's in-house lawyer. It's after 8 in New York, but Deaton eats up all the billable hours he can get.

Derek's phone vibrates. He hesitates for a minute, afraid to check it, but it's just Stiles. _Getting into LAX tomorrow at noon. Order takeout?_ and then _I can help you with your emotional trauma w/ my mouth._ There's a funny, swoopy feeling in Derek's stomach, and not at all like the one in the peacock hutch, when he threw up all the mistletoe cocktails and canapes he'd had that evening before passing out in Stiles's lap.

 _Ok :)_ , he texts back.

 _8====D :D,_ Stiles says. _< /sext>_

—

Allison rolls up right as the shoot is packing up; Isaac and Jackson are already gone, possibly to screw some more while cameras aren't rolling and they don't have to employ supernatural endurance to hold off orgasm for hours. She wades through partially collapsed rigging and yawning crew to sit next to Derek on the futon. "Hey," she says. "I wanted to talk to you before the shit totally hits the fan."

"Has she talked to you?" Derek says. "Do you know what's in there?"

Allison shakes her head. "You know we don't, after the whole—" she bites her lip. "She didn't want me getting mixed up in all this. She still thinks I should go back to school, stop dating Scott, the whole deal."

A few decades ago, back before people actually got convicted for murder when they chopped werewolves in half, the Argents were werewolf hunters, allegedly neutral vigilantes welcomed by small towns and extremist communities. There are a lot of humans that still think of interspecies sex as fetish. Kate might not like werewolves, but she doesn't seem to have any problem with fucking them and taking their money. "This isn't your fault," Derek says—after all, he's the one who invited Kate into his home, his family, got her into Peter's bed. "We have lawyers, we have PR. Even bad publicity is publicity."

Allison pulls up her legs, tucks her knees under her chin. "I'm still sorry. I fucked up."

Derek looks at her for a long moment, then tentatively holds out his arm along the back of the futon.

Unexpectedly, Allison laughs. "I know you don't hug," she says. "It's okay. Thanks."

 

(3)

Stiles blows Derek on the third-floor futon while everyone else goes out for dinner between the end of the workday and _The Pack Next Door_ , and then Derek flips Stiles over and rims him until he's panting and begging for release. He lasts for three strokes in Derek's hand before he comes all over the futon cover. "Oops," Stiles says, rolling them away from the wet spot. "That comes off, right?"

"We have laundry in the basement," Derek says. "It's fine."

They cuddle afterward, Stiles draped over Derek's chest, flipping between corporate twitter feeds on his phone. Historically, Derek does not cuddle, either; he does not take people home, he does not spend the night, he does not fuck anyone at work. But Stiles is—Stiles. They've had a long, slow not-courtship of eyefucking and dropped passes to get to know each other. Stiles knows about Derek's past, he cares about Derek's furniture, and he's not weirded out by Derek's workaholic tendencies. He doesn't have time to date Peter on TV.

"Are we dating?" Stiles says, too loud and too close to Derek's ear. His phone dings. "I mean—no pressure, but I like you a lot. I'm into the sex and the snuggles."

Derek rubs his feet against Stiles's. He likes the freedom to have this kind of intimacy, not sexual at all, that he's never really had with anyone but packmates.

Stiles nudges Derek's feet back. "Use your _words_."

"Dating," Derek says. "Um. Good. I like you, too."

Stiles sighs and slumps over Derek's body, like he's melting to fill all the nooks and crannies between neck and shoulder, expanding down into the dip of Derek's navel. "Awesome," he says. "I'll ask Laura about your bride price."

They end up rolling into the wet spot on the mattress on their second round, but Derek doesn't care. He's too focused on marking Stiles up again, not just the lovely stretch of his neck but the soft curves of his shoulders, his flushed chest, the insides of his thighs. Stiles is hard again by the time Derek finishes, so Derek sucks him off this time, shifting enough that his tongue is longer, rough, textured. He swallows down every salty drop while Stiles keens loud enough that any wolves on the first floor are going to hear him. It's so good.

—

Paige's special guest this week is a post-rehab Kesha Rose, and Derek wanders downstairs to find her warbling her new single with aggressive drum & bass backing. "I'm into it," Isaac says, holding up a bowl of popcorn. "Come on, it's time for trash party."

This week, there's only four of them crowded onto the threesome bed. Derek crawls back next to Isaac, trying for casual, but Stiles climbs into Derek's lap and throws an arm around his neck. So much for that. "God, this is sickening," Laura says, reaching back to jab Derek in the thigh with her index finger. "Thank you for showering. I don't need details."

Preemptively, Derek says to Isaac, "Neither do you." Isaac huffs.

Stiles ducks in and presses his mouth to Derek's neck. Derek wishes the scratches on his back had healed a little slower. "There's nothing exciting happening tonight, right? I mean, they film this stuff months in advance."

Derek wraps a tentative arm around Stiles's waist. "Just the usual."

 _The Pack Next Door_ has an open format like _Keeping Up with the Kardashians_ and _The Real World_ , so the narrative of each episode is laboriously constructed by wading through hours of footage. There's enough lag time between filming and airtime that this season might not even be in production anymore. Derek can dream.

On screen, the narrator intones, " _Tonight on the_ Pack Next Door _… Ethan helps plan this year's Playmate Ball, Aiden wants to get a tattoo, and Peter films a guest spot on_ Around the World in 80 Meals _. Tempers… are running high._ "

" _It's not that I'm jealous_ ," Ethan says in the study-slash-confessional booth. He looks down at his hands. "I just don't understand why he has time to take off to Hawai'i for the weekend but not to look at the menu for the sit-down dinner I'm planning for 200 people? In our house? That's like a wedding. That's wedding-scale.."

Cut to Aidan, " _Ethan keeps acting like this is a wedding and he's bridezilla in residence. If Peter were going to f—-ing marry anyone, he'd have put a ring on it before Jennifer left to do her show. So he needs to back off about my f—-ing dragon tattoo._ "

Cut to Peter reclining on a chaise behind Jennifer as she interviews a tanned chef on the beach. She's wearing a bikini; the chef has on Ray-Bans and full kitchen dress. " _Tell me more about the seasonings you use for the pulled pork_ ," Jennifer says. " _You mentioned the fresh pineapple, but I'd like to know more about the coconut._ "

Cut to commercial.

Laura yawns. "Don't wake me up unless Peter ends up in the luau pit," she says, and rolls over face down onto the spot where Isaac came all over Jackson's face yesterday.

—

Isaac gets up to microwave more popcorn during the second commercial break. "Peter never invites _me_ to his parties," he says when he comes back, scooting past a snoring Laura. "I saw him in the backyard once. Tanning. I don't know how he gets that to stick."

Derek sighs. "Tanning spray."

"We snuck into his New Year's Eve party last year." Stiles leans over to grab a handful of popcorn. "At least, I did. I think Derek had an invitation."

"Cora always invites us," Derek says. "I don't think Peter puts us on the list."

Isaac sighs. "I'm jealous. There's an open bar."


	2. suspend / invert

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> circus/yoga AU!
> 
> content notes: MOST OF THE CIRCUS THINGS HERE should not be done without a spotter, so like... don't try them on your flying rig at home.

(1)

The first time Derek meets Stiles, he's upside down.

"Like that," Allison says, touching his hip gently to correct his position; Derek presses his hands into the floor and tries to believe that he can open up across his chest. He's bent over backwards, hands and feet both on the floor, belly up in the air, sweating like a pig. Derek's been doing yoga for three months, but he doesn't think this is ever going to feel natural.

The door swings open, just at the edge of Derek's line of sight, and Allison pauses her circuit through the class to talk to the person at the door. All Derek can see are a pair of oxblood saddles shoes that flow into loose, green pant legs like some surrealist rendering of a flower. Maybe that's the head rush talking.

Allison instructs the class to do a simple twist.

—

Cora meets him after yoga class every Tuesday and Thursday, drags him out to Starbucks and chatters about her classes, her roommate, her first finals looming on the horizon. She's a freshman at NYU, bright-eyed and sunny, one of those kids whose laughing candids litter the pages of every college information booklet; Derek has been taking classes at CUNY on and off for ten years and still hasn't scraped up a degree. Deaton's been gently suggesting he go back to school full-time, but it's not like Derek doesn't have a job, a career. It's—not a big deal.

"Hey, big bro," Cora says today, shouldering her backpack and getting up from the bench by the door. The studio's on the top floor of a pre-war building in the East Village, not that far from her dorm on Third Avenue. "I think it's your turn to pony up for Frappuccinos today."

"It's always my turn," Derek says, trying not to smile.

Derek gets a tall java chip and Cora gets her grande-sugar-free-vanilla-nonfat-with-whip green tea thing that Derek never remembers how to order. Cora elbows him as he tries to shove his wallet back into his pocket, whines, "You always remember Laura's chai." 

"That's a _soy chai_ ," Derek says.

Cora throws herself down into the couch by the window. "Unfair," she says, scooting to one side to leave room for him.

—

The fire happened when Cora was six. She was the one who was in therapy for years, after they pulled her from the smoking ruin, but she came out of everything the best of all three of them. Laura's always working, all wrapped up in her videography business and the additional freelance editing work she takes on; Derek's her sound guy and, occasionally, her second camera. He works full days a few times a month. Yoga's getting him out of bed on the others. That was Deaton's idea, too.

Derek was an awkward, gawky kid, grew into a body he's always felt like he's rattling around in. Sometimes he doesn't recognize himself, looks at the monstrous paws where his skinny fingers should be and feels like a mouse chained up in a lion. It's weird to watch the more experienced people in his yoga class, the graceful arches of their body perfect and practiced against the mat. Derek's always tripping over his own feet, putting his weight on the wrong parts of his body, getting dizzy during headstands. Allison, a lithe gazelle who lives in lululemon, says he's doing just fine. He has a hard time believing her.

"Today, we're building trust with our bodies," she says at the start of every class. "Yoga is the journey. We are the path."

Derek did not need Deaton to figure out that trust is his big issue.

—

After he walks Cora back to her dorm, Derek heads north to Union Square to take the subway home. It's mid-afternoon, so the streets aren't packed, and he manages to get down to the platform right as a 4 train is pulling in. Their apartment—well, just Derek and Laura's, now—is in the 80s, so far east it's almost in the river. He doesn't usually bother with taking the the bus out, just walks from the 86th street station to home. The trees are shedding their fall foliage now, leaves littering the sidewalk, and the sky is blue and clear.

Laura's in the dining room that doubles as her office, talking to someone on her headset, so Derek just drops his mat by the front door and goes to take a nap. She'll wake him when she's done.

—

"Chinese," she calls through the door after he's grumbled a response to her insistent rapping. "I got you moo goo gai pan and sweet and sour."

They eat out of the containers with chopsticks, Laura shoveling in her broccoli beef like she hasn't eaten all day. "Busy?" Derek says, dipping a piece of chicken in the red sauce.

Laura chews, swallows. "We've got a new job lined up. Show on Saturday; their old guy dropped out at the last minute. Maybe a big job after that; they're looking at doing a new promotional video, liked my editing work. Joffrey referred us."

"Hmm," Derek says. He doesn't usually go to yoga on the weekend; he feels less comfortable with Danny and the weekend crowd, busy professionals in new workout gear with flat bellies and three hundred dollar beach hair. "Who is it?"

"Martin-Morrell," Laura says. "They're the circus school in Red Hook, opened last year."

Derek sits his chopsticks down. "Are we doing sound?" Sometimes dance companies just want them to sync with the recorded track.

Laura shrugs. "We're still working out the details; I'm meeting with Lydia tomorrow. I'll need you to assist, anyway."

—

Derek googles Martin-Morrell before he heads back to bed. They have a glitzy website that requires the latest flash plugin, with lots of photos of the founders, Bianca Morrell suspended from ethereal silks twenty feet in the air and Lydia Martin doing graceful contortions on a hoop. They're in a converted warehouse, big enough to have their own flying rig.

The guy hanging upside down on the trapeze page looks familiar, but Derek can't place him.

 

(2)

Wednesday mornings are Derek's weekly appointment with Deaton, early enough that he doesn't have any trouble getting down from the Upper West Side to yoga class afterward. Derek saw Deaton for a while before Laura moved them to the other side of the park, after Kate. It was easier going back to him than finding someone new. Derek didn't have to explain.

"How's yoga?" Deaton says once Derek's settled into the chair opposite him. "Progress this week?"

Derek shrugs. "I did an unsupported headstand. I survived."

Deaton gives him a little smile. "Evidently."

"It was easier," Derek says, relenting. "The—the touching. I don't know. I'm still terrible."

"Yoga's not a sport," Deaton says in that impatient, infuriating way of his. He lets a long beat of silence go by, gives Derek time to fill it, before he asks, "And Cora?"

"She's good," Derek says. Cora's easy to talk about. "Likes her lit seminar a lot. Her roommate's still—out at night a lot, wakes her up when she comes in, which—she doesn't get back to sleep sometimes. Laura told her she should have gotten a single, but she seems okay. I saw her yesterday."

"After class, yes." Deaton nods. The way he knows Derek's routine is a little creepy, but that's why Derek's here, after all. Routine. Getting out of bed on a regular basis, now that he doesn't have Cora to take care of at home, just long, empty days between sound gigs. Normal people don't go through empty nest freakouts when they're 28, but Derek's not a normal person.

— 

Allison pushes harder in her Wednesday and Friday classes, takes less time to give individual feedback and adjustments, runs them through a punishing set of asanas. Derek used to hate Wednesdays and Fridays, but he's starting to find them relaxing, the way they leave him an exhausted puddle of goo incapable of anything more complicated than drinking coconut water and wandering back home to rest. Wednesday class has made his appointments with Deaton easier, that's for sure. He doesn't have room in his head to obsess over everything, go over every word that left his mouth even in the privacy of therapy. Sometimes he's afraid that he'll leak his whole self out like a sieve, that they'll be nothing left if he's ever done.

That can't be true; there's Cora to prove that false, smiling and joyful and whole. But it's hard to shake the fear that the only thing holding him together is the restraint that's kept everything bottled up for years.

After yoga, Derek heads back uptown to run a few errands for Laura, picks up a few things at Food Emporium, reheats Chinese for dinner. Deaton would scowl at that, but, whatever. Derek's not a housewife. He has—things to do.

Right.

—

On Friday, Derek goes down to Red Hook to meet up with Laura at Martin-Morrell. As expected, they're just looping prerecorded audio for the show, but Laura has him running a second, stationary camera, because she's Laura, and she wants to scoop a bigger project with Martin-Morrell _a lot_. Derek leaves early enough to take the water taxi to IKEA, so he has a saucepan sticking out of his messenger bag when he turns up twenty minutes early to their meeting.

"So, Ms. Martin's still teaching, and your sister isn't here yet," the guy at the desk says, flipping through a calendar on his iPad. "I'm Scott, by the way."

"Derek," Derek says, like he didn't just introduce himself a moment ago, then wants to smack himself in the face. There is a reason Laura is the face—the mouth—of her business.

Scott just laughs, though, gives Derek a warm smile. "You want to have a look around? Ly—Ms. Martin's class is in the gym, but you can check out the trapeze rig. We've got a couple people practicing." He gestures toward a wide hallway to the left. "Go on. It's pretty cool."

There doesn't seem to be a way to turn the invitation down gracefully, so Derek says, "Sure." He tries to adjust his saucepan subtly.

—

The room at the end of the hallway takes up the full height and breadth of the building's space, and the rig fills most of that as well. There's a man hanging upside down from a trapeze, suspended, swinging back and forth, hands outstretched; he leans back to propel himself into a broader arc. As he swings back toward the center, the woman hanging from the trapeze opposite him leaps, twisting mid-air. He catches her effortlessly, swinging her back and forth a few times before he lets go and she cannonballs down onto the net. "Good one," she says, climbing out, pausing at the edge of the net to tug down her top.

It takes Derek a long moment to place her, even in her familiar uniform of leggings and fitted top: she's Allison. His yoga instructor.

Who just dived off a trapeze. 

"Um," Derek says. "Hi?" 

His voices echoes in the cavernous room. If they ever film in here, it's going to be a bitch to mic.

Allison looks over at him and squints, tilting her head, before her brows lift and her face smoothes with recognition. "Derek, right? From my morning class? What are you doing over here?"

Derek nods, fiddles with the strap of his bag. "My—my sister's filming the show tomorrow, but we're looking at doing a promotional video for the school later. I'm checking out the space."

"Nice." Allison smiles up at him. She seems taller in class, but maybe that's because she has Derek on his knees all the time. "My performance group—"

The guy behind her flips off the trapeze and lands face-first down on the net.

"That's Stiles." Allison jerks a thumb back at the rig. "He's my co-conspirator. We practice here. If you're filming tomorrow, you'll see some of our stuff—we're towards the end of the program, after the students."

"Innocent babes that they are," Stiles says, hauling himself over the side of the net to hop to the floor. His feet are long and slender, bare against the laminate. "Lydia's saved everything interesting for herself, as usual."

Allison rolls her eyes. "Hush, you," she calls fondly over her shoulder. Turning back to Derek, she adds, "Now you know my secret. Yoga's my day job—keeps me limber, pays the bills, you know."

Derek does not, actually, know, but he nods along. "This is more—exciting?"

"You bet," Stiles says, loping over toward them. He's dressed more casually than Allison, a worn Primus tee over tight sweatpants with NYU emblazoned on the ass in huge purple letters. Not that Derek was looking when Stiles bent down to fish his flip-flops from beneath the rig. "Have you never been to a circus? Ringling Brothers, Cirque du Soleil, Big Apple— ?"

"I saw _Mystère_ once," Derek says. "My parents took us to Vegas when I was a kid. I, uh—didn't properly appreciate it." He'd fallen asleep, woken up when his mother reached across Laura to poke him in the shoulder. Dad teased him about it for years.

The Martin-Morrell warehouse isn't much like the Treasure Island Hotel: it's a 19th century building designed for storage and shipment instead of performance. There's a show here tomorrow, but it doesn't look like they've done much in the way of preparation. "We do stuff differently here," Allison says, stretching. "Marin used to be part of the Cirque du Soleil company, _La Nouba_ was her big break, but the school's more geared to making circus accessible. I mean, Lydia's kids are barely out of high school."

" _Babies_ ," Stiles says. "Although the aerial yoga is really popular with moms."

"Do you teach here, too?" Derek asks.

Allison nods. "Just the one class, Friday nights. Marin does all the advanced stuff."

Stiles moves like he's going shove his hands in his pockets, but his hands just slip against his pants; they don't have any. He folds his arms over his chest instead, clears his throat. "Not me. I just practice here."

"Come on," Allison says, reaching over to touch Stiles's arm with the same gentleness and intent she uses to adjust people in class. "Let's show him Lydia's class. Then Heather and Paige can throw you around."

—

The gym has laminate flooring, cushioned pads everywhere, and myriad things hanging from the ceiling; hoops, ropes, a few isolated trapezes, and the aerial silks that Lydia's students are using. There are five of them, three women and two men, each of them stretched out perpendicular to the silks, legs wrapped carefully in the material, arms extended in a graceful reach.

Lydia—Derek recognizes her from the website—has her glossy red mane pinned up in a bun, glamorous leotard traded in for leggings and an athletic tank top. She's scrutinizing the tow-headed guy at the end. "Isaac, open up a bit more. Let your arms fall back, you're not try to push against the air, you're leaning into it. Paige—" she turns on her heel, looks up at the pale brunette beside him, "Tighten up down there, or you're going to fall on your ass. Boyd, Heather, Erica, you're good. Run through your dismounts again and then we'll wrap up." 

Her students pull in, from left to right in sequence, gripping the two pieces of fabric between their hands and releasing the ends around their legs until they're hanging from their arms alone. Then, as one, they pull their silks together and slide down in smooth, synchronous spirals, until they're sprawled on the floor, bodies still and limp.

"Try to look more like graceful petals than corpses," Lydia says, nudging Paige's hip with her toe. "I swear to God—"

"Yes, ma'am," the dark-skinned guy next to Paige says loudly.

"I have to pee," the curly-haired blonde on the end says. "Are you—"

" _Class dismissed_ ," Lydia growls.

"That's our Lydia," Stiles says, bumping his shoulder against Derek's. He doesn't bother to lower his voice. "Queen of all she surveys."

On Derek's other side, Allison fails to suppress a delicate snort. 

Lydia rolls her eyes, crossing the room to join them as her students stream out the door. "You must be Laura Hale's brother," she says. "How nice of you to join us."

"Ms. Martin," Derek says, holding out his hand to shake.

Lydia's hands are small, nails trimmed close and glossily painted, palms calloused; her grip is firm. "This is my advanced aerial class—they're preparing for the recital tomorrow. Laura says you'll be her second camera."

After she releases him, Derek swivels his hip a little to try to get his bag against his back; the handle of the saucepan smacks against a kidney. "Yeah," he grunts, suppressing a wince. "I'm—I'll be the stationary camera, yeah. I also do sound, if you're—I was looking at the space."

She nods. "We haven't tried live sound back there before—as you can see, it would be a challenge. That's something we could discuss, though—"

"Later," Derek says hastily.

"Of course," Lydia says smoothly. "Now—Derek, you'll come with me, and Allison and Stiles can round up their band of miscreants."

"Hey—" Stiles objects, but Lydia's already halfway through the door. Derek shoots him and Allison an apologetic look before he follows.

—

Laura's waiting in the lobby, neat in slacks, tweed jacket, and the crisp cotton button-down that Derek ironed last night. She smiles when she sees Lydia—a real smile, not one of her open-mouthed, exaggerated grins—which, well, there's a reason she's so set on landing a bigger gig with Martin-Morrell, apparently. "Lydia," Laura says, coming toward them. It's not until she's clasped Lydia's hand in her own that she notices Derek. "And—there's my brother, I see you've met."

"Just now," Lydia says. Her posture has shifted, more relaxed than it was back in the gym, and she's brushing stray hairs back from her forehead, smoothing down her top. "He saw a little of my class, and one of our instructors showed him around the back. My office?"

—

"You like her," Derek says, later, on the ferry back into the city. "She likes you."

Laura glances out at the waves. "You're okay with that?"

Derek clears his throat. "Had to happen sometime," he says instead of the kneejerk _yes, sure, it's fine_ that creeps up on his tongue. "I mean—you don't have to be alone forever, just because—you don't have to take care of me."

"Pot, kettle, baby bro," she says, sighing.

"That's not the same thing," he says.

A few seats over, there's a baby crying, its mother rummaging frantically through her bag; the guy across from Derek has the volume on his headphones turned up loud enough that the Derek can hear the thumping bass backing him up as he raps along to the song that's playing. Derek lets the noise wash over him, relaxes into the steady vibration of the boat and the familiar warmth of Laura's body next to his. They'll be home soon enough. He can worry about it then.

"I'm sorry," Laura says as they're pulling up to the dock in Manhattan. "I—I wish I'd have done things differently. I wish Mom and Dad—"

Derek looks over at her, where she's twisting her hands in her lap, puts his hand on her arm. "You couldn't— it doesn't—"

"Don't tell me it doesn't matter," Laura says, voice low. "Come on, Derek. You know better than that."

There's nothing to say to that, so Derek stays silent the rest of the way home, at least until Laura pulls him into Layton's because they're having a towel sale.

 

(3)

Derek sets up his camera close to the wall opposite the rig, behind the padded folding chairs that Scott and Stiles are setting up for the audience. Laura will be up on the catwalk that runs around the room at the height of the first story, but she's in the office with Lydia and Marin Morrell now, going over the shots they want one last time. Since Derek's just filming a wide shot of the performance space, all he has to do is get everything into focus and keep on eye on the Vixia. It's an older model; Laura has the 60D with a stabilizer, since she usually shoots handheld. 

"Hey," he calls over to Stiles, who's twiddling his thumbs while he waits for Scott to wheel the next cart of chairs in. "I need to check the depth of field on this. Would you mind, um, just going up there and—"

Stiles vaults over the chair behind him. "No prob," he says, loud enough that his voice rattles around the room like he's talking into one of those plastic echo microphones. "I got you."

"Thanks," Derek says, eyes on the LCD screen.

Yesterday, Stiles was looked like a sloppy college student in workout clothes, but today, he's wearing tight jeans and a sleeveless top; Derek revises his estimate of Stiles's age up a few years. He doesn't mean to keep checking Stiles out, except for the part where he does, because it's crucially important that Stiles's ass be in focus or Laura will be out for blood.

Well, maybe not Stiles's ass. Maybe his muscled biceps or the graceful reach of his neck or the pale skin taut over his collarbones or—his face, or something.

Stiles climbs up the ladder on the left side like a monkey, swift and easy. He takes a moment to stretch at the top platform before he swings out on one trapeze. After a few passes back and forth, he lets go at the top of the arc and flips mid-air to hook the trapeze with his knees on the way down. He hangs there, arms dangling, impossibly relaxed, until the movement of the trapeze slows enough that he's barely rocking. Then Stiles reaches up, pulls himself onto the bar, and just… swings. Like a carefree kid at a playground. 

He winks at Derek before he dives down into the net.

When Scott returns with the squeaking cart and another set of chairs, Lydia's hot on his heels. "Stiles! What are you—are those _jeggings_?"

"They make my ass look great," Stiles says serenely.

Lydia glares at him. "Don't try me," she hisses.

—

The program should run about two hours, with short performances from the beginning and intermediate students and longer ones from the advanced crowd, capped off by Stiles and Allison's troupe.

[PERFORMANCE]

—

While the audience gets to their feet, gathering purses and jackets and scarves, Derek starts packing up the Vixia, putting the camera in its padded carrying case, collapsing the tripod into its zippered sleeve, and packing everything inside the rolling suitcase Laura uses for their gear. Laura herself is climbing down from the catwalk, the 60D safely stowed in her backpack. She raises her brows at him, nods at the crowd milling around the performance area; Derek shrugs. He doesn't really want to mingle, dodging congratulations and bouquets, to do—what?

Stiles is at the front of the stage, shaking hands, accepting cheek kisses, a red carnation tucked rakishly behind one ear. He looks happy, in his element. Farther away, now that Derek doesn't have the magnification and false intimacy of the camera between them.

"Someone you want to talk to?" Laura says when she reaches him. She bends down to put her camera and backpack in the suitcase. "Allison? She was—"

"No, I'm—I'll, I should get out of here," Derek says. "Could you—you probably want to talk to Lydia, I can take everything—"

Laura shakes her head. "She might want to see some of the raw footage."

"Tell Allison—that she was great, I'll see her in class Tuesday, I'll—" Derek shoulders his messenger bag, starts heading to the door. He's moving too fast; he trips over the handle of the suitcase, barely catches himself with one hand against the rough brick of the wall. His palm is already stinging when he pulls it away, scraped raw, but Derek just closes his eyes, inhales, clenches his fist. "I have to go," he says when he opens them again.

—

Derek has some crumpled napkins from the pizza place on the corner in his backpack, and he wraps up his palm with them for the trip back, the bus to the R to the 4. He reads some of his book, but it's awkward turning the pages one-handed, so he spends the last leg dicking around on his phone, scrolling through his Facebook feed, which is mix of Cora's old classmates' parents, people from his courses at CUNY, and Laura's clients' fan pages. Cora's been tagged in a few pictures, wearing a witch hat and holding a plastic cup at someone's dorm party. Halloween's usually a holiday in their apartment; this year, Derek's almost forgotten about it.

Peeling away the paper and cleaning the scrape with iodine hurts like fuck, but Derek does it anyway.

 

(4)

By Tuesday, his hand's healed enough that Derek survives an hour of planking and lunges and downward dog, although the skin around the scab is red and sore by the end of class. He folds his yoga mat in half, clean sides together, and rolls it up, pulls the mesh bag over it; waits for people to start drifting outside before he approaches Allison, who's stretching at the front of the classroom in preparation for the more advanced class after this one.

"Hey," Derek says. "I'm sorry that I didn't, on Saturday—you were—you're all really talented."

Allison scrunches her noses, smiling. "Thanks. I mean—we work hard, that's all, like you do here. You teach your body. It's not some big mystery."

Yoga doesn't exactly involve leaping into anyone's arms at a great height, but— "I get that," Derek says. "Anyway. The show was—it was great."

"I'm glad you liked it," Allison says. "You did good today, too, you know. You've come a long way."

Derek shrugs. He's not very good with compliments.

—

"Shit," Cora says when she catches sight of his hand. They've managed to snag some stools in the window and wedge themselves in between a group of tourists and a column, Cora's bag between her knees and Derek's yoga mat and umbrella beneath his feet. "What happened? Did you hurt yourself with _yoga_?"

Derek sighs, pulling his hand out of her grasp. "No, I hurt myself with walking."

Cora snorts. "Good job."

"I'm fine," he says. "And the circus show went well. Laura's editing stuff now, I think she wants to have a rough cut by this weekend."

"Whoa, rush job?" Cora says.

The woman next to him whacks Derek in the side with the tip of her umbrella; he glances over, but she's already leaving, a girl with a plaid rain slicker dumping her overloaded backpack on the vacant chair. "Sort of," Derek says when he turns back to Cora. "Laura—she likes one of the owners. They might be dating, I don't know."

For a moment, Cora goes still, quiet. She starts picking at the cardboard sleeve on her cup. "That's new. Is she nice?"

"Not exactly," Derek hedges. "But Laura—"

"Laura's not nice, either, I get it," Cora says, so Derek doesn't have to. The words felt like a betrayal in his mouth, but from Cora, they're just fact. Laura's driven and assertive, always focused on what she needs to do to get ahead, whether it's school or business or squeezing herself onto an express train at rush hour. She tries for gentle at home, but there's a reason Derek ended up the one chaperoning Cora's field trips and attending PTA meetings.

Derek stirs his melting Frappuccino with his straw, watching the whip cream dissolve into the slurry, chip-studded mess at the bottom of the cup. "It's weird."

"It's weird," Cora agrees. She leans into him, tilts her head against Derek's shoulder. "It's—I don't know, you guys never really talked about it, I just—I always thought you'd grow old together or something. Like other peoples' parents do."

There's nothing, really, for Derek to say to that, so he just puts his arm around Cora's shoulders and gives her a hug.


	3. ring of swords AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fusion with Eleanor Arnason's _Ring of Swords_. Some Lydia POV, some Stiles.

1

The research station on Reed 1935-C is seated at the foot of one of the higher hills, surrounded by yellow moss, opening out onto the mouth of the bay, good old H2O. The atmosphere here is breathable; Lydia sleeps with her windows open at night. Freight from Earth is impossible, so her room is spartan. There's a single bed, a dresser, a low desk with the shallow bowl where she keeps her jewelry. From the window, Lydia can see the lights of the pseudosiphonophores as they drift in from the sea.

Floating on the dark expanse of the bay, they look a little like stars.

 

2

Unshifted, Derek can pass for human: the two species are remarkably similar. "Don't bother," Stiles says, tugging at Derek's jacket until it settles on his shoulders. "You shouldn't—"

"Try to fit in?" Isaac blinks and his golden eyes fade, his claws recede. He's already wearing his uniform, jacket, slacks, and knee-high boots. The Art Corps worked from Stiles's sketches, incorporating what he called _a vintage 20th century science fiction aesthetic_ into the design. 

Derek usually wears shorts and comfortable shoes. The jacket is already too hot; the boots pinch. "Do I look intimidating to you?" he says to Stiles.

Stiles smiles at him: warm, private. "You look dignified, First-Defender Hale," he says. "We'll laugh about this later."

 

3

The first four years Lydia spent on Reed 1935-C were uneventful. During the fifth, it becomes the site of human- _hwarhath_ negotiations, and the mossy hill over the research station acquires prefab domed citadels. A diplomatic compound. Her mail is opened and read, coming and going, each message passed on with the digital signature of the government at the bottom. Lydia doesn't have much to write home about anyway. Fall is coming, the air is cooling, and the creatures she studies are coming into the bay for their annual fuck.

The head botanist, Allison, is banging one of the junior diplomats from Earth. "Scott says the _hwarhath_ have a human with them," Allison says through a mouth of not-kale chips when she stops by Lydia's office around lunch. "Translating. A translator."

"Yeah, okay." Lydia taps her stylus against the palette on her tablet to change the color. Red-red-blue showed up this morning while she was out on the research boat, flashing its name at Moby the communication float and then _greetings—welcome—no aggression_. "Did he say anything else interesting?"

Allison bats her lashes. "I have beautiful eyes, and gorgeous—"

"I hope you brought enough of those for me," Lydia says, stretching her hand toward the bag of chips.

 

4

Stiles has been with the _hwarhath_ a long time, long enough that mixing with human society comes with a strange, dissociated double vision. The diplomatic negotiations are straight out of a hero play—drab set, minimal props, splendid costumes—and just as tedious. The human military uniforms have changed; the suits are the same. Stiles translates, though Derek can speak English perfectly well and Boyd isn't far behind.

They show the humans what they expect to see.

 _Hwarhath_ are schooled from a young age not to listen to anything they don't want to hear. In the relative privacy of Derek's quarters, Stiles drops the intricate, formal pronouns of the main language and lapses into the simple dialect of Hale. He's a linguist, he's picked up the language that Derek and Isaac use between themselves over the years. "Well?" Stiles says. "How do you think it's going?"

Derek shrugs. "These people came here to negotiate with us, but they can't even agree among themselves." 

As if the frontmen are so united in opinion. But Derek is here, and Deucalion, Ennis, Peter are not.

Stiles dims the lights while Derek strips himself ungracefully from his unaccustomed layers. He doesn't get cold, not the way Stiles does, not like a human, but he shivers under Stiles's familiar touch. Stiles runs his hands up Derek's sides, pulls Derek to scratch his nails up Derek's spine, tilts back his head to Derek can scent him. Humans see what they want to see, but the _hwarhath_ can smell Derek's mark on him, the way Stiles reeks of pack. 

 

5

The psuedosiphonophores are visually similar to the jellyfish on Earth, but they remind Lydia most of the little LED light she had by her bed as a child. It was the kind of abstract shape that humans can't resist personifying, and it moved from red to purple to blue and back while Lydia laid in bed at night, watching the dim play of lights wash over the ceiling. The young psuedosiphonophores that mate in the bay have a greater vocabulary and basic syntax; projections suggests that the mature ones that stay in the deeps are bigger, smarter.

Lydia checks the weather on her tablet over breakfast, doubles back to her room for her parka before she heads out to join Danny on the research boat. The wind out is unseasonably cool and biting, the water choppy. She has to watch her footing on the floating segments of the dock.

"Anything interesting?" she asks once she's safely aboard and inside the snug cabin. The boat collects junk like the back seat of a car, the floor and limited workspace littered with debris: one of Lydia's cardigans, crumpled hot chocolate and miso soup packets, a battered hot plate Danny filched from the staff room years ago. The cracked vinyl seats are covered with threadbare t-shirts secured with duct tape over the exposed foam, improvised upholstery.

Danny yawns, stretching his arms over his head. "Someone took a big craft out from the other side of the bay an hour ago, everyone's pissed." Lydia peeks over his shoulder at the feeds from Moby's cameras: half-a-dozen of the creatures are clustered around it, defensive tentacles extended, blinking orange in distress.

The other side of the bay is where the _hwarhath_ have built their temporary residential compound.

"Ugh," Lydia says. "They're not still out there?"

"They went back in as soon as everybody freaked out," Danny says. "Maybe they wanted to swim with the giant, stinging dolphins while slowly dying of hypothermia, I don't know."

Lydia brandishes a thermos. "I brought coffee."

"Mmm," Danny says, making gimme fingers. "Exchange genetic material with me, baby."

 

6

"I'm bored," Stiles says to Isaac on day twelve of negotiations. They're cooling their heels in the cafeteria of the diplomatic compound while Isaac tries not to stare at the bizarre human phenomenon of public food consumption. "Let's go out."

Isaac follows Stiles everywhere, for security as much as safety. Stiles's relationship with Derek gives him some insulation from _hwarhath_ military concerns, but once a traitor, twice a traitor. Fair enough. "Check with Derek?" he says.

They acquire additional company on their way out of the compound, a human soldier with clipped hair and a machine gun. Isaac politely refrains from making eye contact. "The hills are off limits, sir," the soldier says. "Do you—"

Stiles represses a sigh. "Let's take a boat out on the bay. Or do you have orders about that, too?"

The _hwarhath_ have brought their own watercraft with them, but their human military detail tags along. He insists on checking the boat after Isaac does, eyeing the unfamiliar nav panel with suspicion before reluctantly clearing Stiles to board. What do they think Stiles is going to do, launch a naval campaign against a research station and some geodesic double-wides on a hill?

Out on the water, it's easier to make out the two pale dots coasting on the churning waves. One of them is central, stationary. "What's the boat out there doing?" he asks the soldier.

The soldier looks aggrieved, like he's personally inconvenienced by doling out the most minute details of an explanation. "Research."

The float anchored flashes three colored lights in quick succession, and a gleaming chorus repeats them through the waves. "Those things?" Stiles has seen the lights at night, walking from the diplomatic compound toward where the _hwarhath_ have constructed their own quarters. "What are they?"

"That's classified," the soldier says.

Isaac rolls his eyes, claws tapping against the plastic trim of the nav panel. "Bullshit."


	4. enough is as good as a feast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one I started between 4x01 and 4x02

At first, Kate's magic seems like a de-aging spell. "We smuggle Derek back into the US, wave a few herbs around, and poof! the grumpy kitten we know and love," Stiles says. He's drawn a helpful illustration on the ground with a stick; it looks less like a kitten, Derek, or North America than it does a churned mess of sand. "Piece of cake." 

Scott nods; Kira frowns. "Is this human trafficking?" she says.

"We're not stealing his organs or enslaving him," Lydia says. "So, probably not."

Derek is asleep, or at least still concussed. He recovered enough on the way out of the church that Braeden needed to clock him in the temple to get him into the Jeep, and Malia knocked him out again at the last gas station with a rock. Stiles can't help glancing through the window at Derek's wan face, torn between worry and relief. They have him back.

The hard part is over.

—

Kira starts naming the Dereks after the fourth one turns up on Scott's doorstep. "You're _adorable_ ," she says to the toddler, picking him up to press a kiss to his chubby cheek. "I'm going to call you Baby, okay? And you—" she turns to the Derek behind her, who has bedhead, movie-star stubble, and a permanent scowl. "You can be Scary."

"Is he Sporty?" Scary says, pointing at the six-year-old who keeps trying to get them to play pickup basketball.

"I'M DEREK," Sporty shrieks. Then he lobs the ball in his hands at Scott and hits him in the gut hard enough to make Scott double over. 

The Derek who came with them from Mexico is sitting on the porch steps with his head in his hands. Kira smiled at him over Baby's head. "I'm calling him Cutie."

"This is the best day of my life," Stiles says. 

—

"Where's _your_ mom?" Buzzkill says as Stiles locks the front door behind them.

"She's dead," Stiles says and watches Buzzkill go satisfyingly shamefaced. "There's a Playstation in the living room if you want something to do."

Buzzkill narrows his eyes. "You can't just bribe me to behave."

" _And_ a Dreamcast," Stiles says.

While Buzzkill tries to get the scratched disc for Sonic Adventure to read, Stiles orders a pizza and texts his dad. _we have 12 yr old werewolf guest @ casa stilinski don't freak out :)))))_

_VERY FUNNY_ , Dad texts back.

While Buzzkill messes around with Stiles's old gaming systems, Stiles reads up on temporal paradoxes on Wikipedia. He's read the article before, but that was at 4AM a few years ago, back when all of this was an interesting hypothesis and not something that could impact his actual reality. If the Dereks have been here before—before, _now_ , whatever—has the Derek they know been here, too? Are they changing Derek's life or fulfilling some weird destiny? Is this part of whatever magic Kate Argent worked in Mexico?

"Where's my pack?" Buzzkill says, abruptly at Stiles's elbow. Stiles glances at the time on his laptop—he's wasted more than an hour and opened 20 tabs in Chrome. "Why aren't they here?"

"They're not here any more." Stiles chooses his words carefully. "You and Peter are the only ones still in Beacon Hills. Cora's in Argentina." He forgot about Peter earlier. Crap. Hopefully Peter isn't going to roll up in the middle of this mess.

"Why don't I get to go to Argentina?" Buzzkill says.

"You do," Stiles says. "You come back, though."

Buzzkill has the Hale eyebrows down pat. " _Why?_ "

Stiles shrugs. "Beats me, buddy."

Buzzkill slugs him in the shoulder. 

—

Deaton gives the seven of them the most expressive eyebrow raise that Stiles has ever seen, and he's seen a lot of Disappointed Dad eyebrows, Unimpressed Hale eyebrows, Dubious Coach eyebrows, not to mention Melissa's. Deaton's eyebrows are like a monograph on how fucked up this situation is and how much he does not want to deal with it and how he is fathomlessly unhappy with all of them, Dereks included. All he actually says is, "Mexico?"

Scott says, "There was this temple—well, it was a church, but under it was a temple—"

Deaton holds up a hand. "Spare me." He sighs. "Most spells of transformation are delimited by the tides of the moon. If these Dereks are here with you after the full moon on Saturday, bring them back and I'll see what I can do about it."

One of the Dereks coughs.

"Spells of transformation?" Stiles says.

"No," says Deaton.

—

They still have school, which means leaving the Dereks to their own devices during the day. Scary fucks off to parts unknown as soon as they leave Deaton's office, which means that babysitting duty at Scott's house falls to Cutie, who grudgingly assumes the duty in exchange for a hefty supply of pizza rolls.

"I'm too old to get babysat," Buzzkill protests as he climbs into the backseat of the Jeep. "And Mom always lets me ride up front.

"Well, right now, I am your mom," Stiles says. "And Google says that children 12 and under are safer in the backseat."

"My birthday is in three months," Buzzkill says.

Stiles slams the door closed and fumbles for the seat belt. "Sucks to be you, then."

—

[STUFF]

—

"I don't understand how you can just send them back." Stiles looks at the Dereks clustered around the Nemeton. Scary is holding Baby, his face weirdly tender; Cutie is crouched down talking to Sporty about something. Buzzkill is just wandering around, kicking at the dirt, trying to pretend he's not eavesdropping. He's just a kid. They're all just kids, even Scary. Stiles glances up at his Derek. "What if they could change things?"

"I went to the future," Derek says. "You told me it doesn't work like that."

Stiles says, " _I_ told you in the _future_?"

"Some things." Derek sticks his hands in his pockets, looks at the ground.

"You actually listen to me in the future?" Stiles says. "I'm still stuck on that."

For some reason, Derek smiles—a real smile, small and private. "Apparently, I do."

That's when another Derek walks out of the trees. He's older than the rest, with hair graying at the temples and lines around his eyes. He strides over toward Stiles and his Derek, ignoring the younger Dereks entirely. "Hey," the new Derek says to Derek. "Thanks for taking care of him. He was pretty freaked out when that happened, if I remember right."

"He wouldn't let me use the computer," Derek says. "I don't even know what year it was."

"It takes you by surprise," Old Derek says. "I woke up naked in the forest."

Derek shrugs. "Not the first time."

Old Derek glances at Stiles like he's seeing him for the first time. "You're so young," he says. "I forgot that."

"Hey, I'm 17," Stiles says. "I can get into R-rated movies now."

The two Dereks look at it each other, wry and knowing. "You take care of him, too," Old Derek says. "I mean—I know you will. But—"

Derek nods. 

Buzzkill shouts, "It's almost time, you guys."

Stiles checks his watch—11.57. The moon overhead is round and full. "Not yet," he says, leaving the older Dereks to their cryptic conversation and jogging over to Buzzkill. "Hey, I want you to promise me something, okay?"

Buzzkill rolls his eyes. "What?"

"Sometimes you're going to feel super alone, and it's going to be scary. But this is your future. You're going to have friends who will steal fifty thousand dollars and drive to Mexico to help you. I'm pretty sure Scott spent this week trying to potty-train one of you," Stiles says. "I don't know if you're going to remember this, but promise me you'll try, okay?"

"Yeah, whatever." Buzzkill clears his throat. "Thanks for letting me play Sonic Adventure, I guess."

—

The reversal spell isn't particularly dramatic. Stiles waves some sage around, says a few words, and the Dereks wander off into the trees in pairs. They don't look back.

Then it's just Stiles and Derek standing next to the Nemeton. "Are you okay?" Derek says.

Stiles looks at him, just looks at him. "No," he says. "It's good to have you back."

Derek puts his hand on Stiles's shoulder. "Missed me?"

"Yeah," Stiles says. "I did."


	5. hipster AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> my ability to give zines cool names on the fly was an issue

DEC 2010

"So, this is awkward," the guy hiding in the kitchen with Derek says.

Derek has met Stiles a few times before, when he dropped by the shop to talk to Laura, securing his bike outside carefully with a U-lock before pulling out the seat. Stiles is a memorable guy, even aside from the fact that Derek has never seen anyone else try to stuff a bike seat into a messenger bag. He's tall, with posture that hints at gangly teenagerhood not that long in the past, and he'll listen to Laura talk about growing conditions in Ecuador for half an hour with real interest. Until tonight, Derek didn't know that Stiles was the co-owner of Allison's bike shop; he apparently does the actual bike design and construction.

"Yeah," Derek say. "Do you… want some coffee?"

"I think Scott brought over some of the gingerbread stuff from Trader Joe's, sure, it should be around here," Stiles says, turning in his chair to rifle through the reusable bags he'd brought in the panniers on his bike. Who brings a bike to a blizzard party? How does he expect to get it home? 

Also, Derek is extremely suspicious of flavored coffee. "We have some Jamaica Blue Mountain in the freezer. The shop around the corner roasted it last week."

"Oh, you like _fancy_ coffee." Stiles is clearly trying not to roll his eyes. "Look, try out the wonders of gingerbread. Humor me. It's a transcendent Christmas experience."

"Christmas was yesterday," Derek says.

—

Derek never thought the blizzard party was a good idea, but Laura made her sad puppy face at him. Allison's apartment was two blocks south on Driggs; Laura and Derek could always kick everyone out, even if there was actually a blizzard. In theory.

In practice, Allison and Scott are taking a nap in Laura's room, where the fire escape is, and Laura and Allison's roommate are doing things no brother should have to see in the living room, which lies between Derek and the foyer, and also the blizzard. 

Not for the first time, Derek considers abandoning Stiles in the kitchen and holing up in his room, but that seems like a one-way ticket to Laura lecturing him forever about his lack of social skills and failure at his duties as a host. So, here he is, taking refuge in his own kitchen with some guy he barely knows who has a tattoo of a pennyfarthing on one forearm and a photocopier on the other and drinks _flavored coffee_.

"So, I've never done this with almond milk before, but I bet it'll turn out delicious." Stiles pours a small amount of almond milk into the pan. "And I think Allison brought over some oatmeal cookies, we could eat those. They're pareve, so they're tasty _and_ lactose-free."

Derek raises an eyebrow. "How did you…?"

"Nobody has that much almond milk and Earth Balance in their fridge unless they have a lactose intolerance, they're vegan, or they're keeping kosher," Stiles says. "You have bacon in the meat drawer, so I figured, not vegan or observant. And Laura eats milk chocolate all the time while taunting me about how I have to pay for it even though we're totally bros now."

"Good job, Nancy Drew," Derek says. "Wait—who's—we don't have separate plates for anything, or—"

"Relax, Lydia's not that strict." Stiles flaps his hand dismissively. "She brought some stuff in the cooler by the fridge in case you try to contaminate anything with bacon grease. By 'contaminate,' I obviously mean 'immeasurably improve,' so you should really talk to Laura about my bacon chocolate idea, because—"

The light on the electric kettle goes off, and Derek starts pouring the water through the pour-over brewers into a Fiesta mug and Derek's favorite mustache cup. He has to admit that the gingerbread coffee smells pretty good. Next to him, Stiles turns off the heat on the almond milk, sitting the whisk in the spoonrest on top of the stove.

"The key ingredient here is hot milk, because hot milk makes everything magical," Stiles says. "Scott likes to add Bailey's, but I think that makes it taste weird and Scott just hasn't gotten over the phase where it's awesome to add alcohol to everything."

"That's a thing?" Derek says.

"You're adorable," Stiles says, his eyes on their coffee cups. Derek doesn't know what to do with that.

This is a confusing day. It's 10pm, it's snowing hard outside already, and his sister is in their living room making out with someone. Yesterday, it was Christmas: Peter took the train into the city to get dinner with them instead of Laura and Derek making the trek up to Greenwich. They didn't put up a tree or anything, although Laura got a rosemary bush and decorated it with some tiny ornaments. It almost feels like Christmas didn't happen and Derek is stuck in some weird time warp, some blip, leaning against his kitchen counter while Stiles presses Derek's cup into his hand. His fingers brush against Derek's briefly. They're long, calloused like Derek's own.

Stiles sits down at the table again, humming contentedly. "This was a great idea," he says. "I mean, I know it's kind of weird, considering that when I last looked into the living room my ex-girlfriend had her hand up your sister's shirt—"

"I don't want to kn—"

"—but it's nice. Do you know what the best hill is to go sledding around here?"

"Do you have a sled?" Derek says.

Stiles laughs. "Please. All you need is a big piece of plastic, or, in a pinch, cardboard, and _will_."

They're quiet for a moment, sipping their coffee. 

A door creaks down the hall and Allison comes in, yawning, her hair mussed. "Hey, do I smell coffee? Can I have some?"

"Sure, I'll make a cup for you," Stiles says, putting down his mug.

"I'll do it, I'm up." Derek says. "There's still some milk left." He rinses out one of the brewers in the sink while Allison unearths the cookie tin.

"Thanks," she says, smiling at Derek. Allison doesn't look anything like her aunt. Seeing her again after all these years has been strange and she put Derek on guard at first, but he's gotten more comfortable being around her in the last few months. Laura is one of those people who finds it easy to make casual acquaintances and difficult to develop close friendships; Derek can hardly begrudge her this one.

Out of the corner of his eye, Derek catches Stiles smiling at him while Allison ruffles his hair. It's cozy. Laura's not the only one who could stand to make a few more friends.

Derek gets down another mug from the cabinet. "No problem," he says.

 

APRIL 2005

Stiles meets Allison because his best friend Danny from high school is tabling at MoCCA Fest and Stiles volunteered to hang out for moral support. Danny's a sophomore at SVA and Stiles is a freshman at NYU; they grew up in Forest Hills and they've been to the last few MoCCA Fests, but it's the first time for either of them behind a table.

Danny has bookmarks, prints, and twenty copies of the self-published compilation of the first 200 strips of his webcomic, and Stiles brought along a few issues of [zine name], because why not. He's always looking for his people. Maybe, someday, he'll find someone who can actually draw _and_ deal with his inability to focus on a single topic in one zine, let alone a series. Stiles lives in hope.

Allison stops by their table around 2pm, after Kate Beaton's panel lets out. She's the first person who gives one of Stiles's zines more than a passing glance. "Hey, I've totally read this one," she says. "Are you—"

"Stiles Stilinski, in the flesh." Stiles almost falls out of his chair in his effort to lean forward and shake her hand.

Allison grins at him. "I'm Allison Argent—my best friend Lydia and I write [zine name], I don't know if you've heard of it—"

"Oh, yeah, I have a few issues," Stiles says. "Wait, you're the Allison who does all those people-watching comics about Starbucks?"

"Yes!" Allison says. "Wow, I've never actually met anyone who's read [zine name] in the wild."

Next to them, Danny clears his throat. "You guys want to go get lunch?" he says. "I can hang out here for a while by myself, I'm cool."

—

Allison is also a freshman at NYU, although she's a business major and they don't have any overlapping classes. While she grew up in a brownstone a few blocks from the Natural History Museum and Stiles is a Queens kid through-and-through, they hit it off immediately. Stiles's zine-making has kind of fallen by the wayside this year in between class and homework and the wonder of actually living in the city for the first time, but he meets Allison, he gets back into the swing of things. A year later, they're distributing their own zine all over the country via bookstores and the magic of their blog. 

It helps that Allison and Scott, Stiles's brother-from-another-mother, fell in love at first sight two months into Stiles and Allison's BFFship. Despite, or possibly because of the fact, that Scott was wearing nothing but Spongebob boxers for his and Stiles's post-finals drunken video game marathon and Allison was dressed in head-to-toe vintage starlet gear at the time. Although Allison's parents disapprove of Scott on principle, their love is as enduring as it is star-crossed and separated by three trains. That means that Stiles gets plenty of time with both of them all to himself, and, honestly, he couldn't be happier.

College is the best.

—

Stiles doesn't really get into bikes until junior year. He will later be embarrassed to admit that the first bike he buys with his own money is a fixie.

 

MARCH 2011

The cafe where Derek usually writes in the mornings is a fifteen minute walk north in Greenpoint. He doesn't figure out how close it is to Gear Goddess until the spring, when he starts running into Stiles all the time. Stiles is usually riding a bike—not always the same one—past the cafe up Manhattan Ave, although he's come in once or twice. Each time, Derek slouched into his chair and stared out the window until the coast was clear. It's not that he dislikes Stiles, but his writing is private. He does publish a few stories and poems every year, but that's in Boyd and Erica's zine and Derek uses a pseudonym.

Derek's a private guy; naturally, his writing also feels private. _[zine name]_ lets him send them out into the world in a form where he has little knowledge of their distribution or reception. Laura's always gently nudging him to submit to literary magazines, but Derek's not interested. Publishing this way lets him get his works out of his system and off his hard drive, but it prevents him from obsessing over what other people might think about him or what he writes. The only people aside from Laura who know that Derek writes are Erica and Boyd, and he's known them since high school, so that's fine. Derek doesn't have any secrets from them.

Of course, Derek doesn't have many friends other than the three of them, so he doesn't think of it as a secret.

 

 

JULY 2011

"Laura, can you pass me the—thanks," Dad says, taking the spatula from Laura, who's hovering next to the grill. He looks over at her and his mouth tugs up at the corner. "I'll take your burger off when it's still mooing, you can go rescue your wife."

"Lydia doesn't need rescuing," Laura says, but she backs off, leaning against the porch railing. Stiles is on the porch, too, still holding the vegetable skewers; when Laura notices, she clears off a place on the table by the grill. "Hey, gimme. I got this."

"Thanks," Stiles says. "Oh, man, is Lydia talking to Harris? She looks like wants to eviscerate him. Why do you even invite him to these things?"

Dad sighs. "He's our neighbor, Stiles. Go bother your friends. I think Laura here and I have got this."

"Sure thing." Laura pats Stiles on the back a little harder than he expects. "Scram."

Scott's mom, Finstock, Harris, and Lydia are standing around the table with fruit salad and bean dip and Scott, Allison, and Danny are in the kiddie pool, drinking beers and splashing each other. Stiles is tempted to join them, but his swim trunks are upstairs and Derek's sitting in one of the lawn chairs by the cooler, nursing a ginger ale, grumpy and unusually damp. "Hey," Stiles says, taking the chair next to Derek's. "You look like you're having a _great_ time."

"I'm fine," Derek says. He's wearing a Mets ballcap, a wet NYM 2009 t-shirt over still-dripping trunks, and flip-flops. 

"Uh," Stiles says. "Can you pass me a beer?"

Derek grabs a can of Miller Lite and holds it out to Stiles.

"Are you kidding?" Stiles draws his hand back against his chest. "Please tell me Scott didn't drink all the Brooklyn."

Derek sighs. "Scott drank all the Summer Ale, but there's some Yuengling left, if you want beer."

"Yuengling it is then," Stiles says. He reaches out a hand and waggles his fingers. "I can't believe you got out of the kiddie pool, dude. You should have saved space for me."

Above them, Laura laughs. "Oh, _Derek_ didn't get in the kiddie pool."

"You made Scott spray me with the hose," Derek says.

"How did I miss this?" Stiles says. "No kebabs were worth this."

"You still have the slip 'n slide, dude?" Scott shouts.

"Fuck yeah, slip 'n slide!" Stiles shouts back.

Derek rubs the bridge of his nose.

—

Stiles is three beers, four rounds of slip 'n slide, and one grass-stained t-shirt into the party when Laura comes out of the house and sits down on the porch steps next to him. "I had to go upstairs because Danny was in the bathroom downstairs," she says. "Your dad's got a lot of great pictures of you, you know?"

"Oh my god," Stiles says. He's already up, moving toward the back door. It's been years since they had anyone new at the Fourth of July barbecue, so everyone else here has known Stiles long enough that they're hardly a revelation. Stiles didn't even think about Laura and Derek coming here beyond fear of Laura and his dad in the same place (still up in the air) and the vague hope that he might get to see Derek in wet t-shirt (realized). Most of the photos are in the hallway upstairs, but there are a few in the living room.

Danny's coming out of the downstairs bathroom when Stiles slams the back door behind him, shucks his sandals by the door, and makes for the living room. "What?" Danny says, and then, "I'll just let you do that, then."

"You had bad jailbait eyeliner moments, _too_ ," Stiles hisses.

"Yeah, because I was actually jailbait." Danny gives him a nostalgic smile, which Stiles almost misses as he scrutinizes the photos on the mantel. "You were just pathetic, Stilinski."

"Shut _up_ ," Stiles says. "Are you going to help me?"

"Nope," Danny says, because he's a terrible friend.

After Stiles dumps the photos in the bottom of the pantry, he heads upstairs for the worst offenders, largely courtesy of Scott's mom, who'd found their high school years particularly hilarious. By his senior year, Stiles mostly looked like a normal person with poor taste in band t-shirts, but his sophomore and junior years were a complete wash. He's finally gotten all of them down when Derek comes up the stairs, looking innocent. "Danny said that you were out of TP downstairs and I should come up here."

Stiles manages, through some miraculous sleight of hand, to shift all the frames behind his back. "Danny is an asshole, I'm sure downstairs is fine. There's toilet paper in the—why don't you just grab the roll in here, that's, that's a great solution."

"Why don't you just show me?" Derek says. "If you hadn't gone after them like—I wouldn't, I mean, Laura might have been pulling your leg."

"Who even says that anymore?" Stiles says. "Are you my dad? Wait, never mind, let's not go down that—"

Derek smiles at him, crowding Stiles back against the linen closet, which Stiles mostly notices because there's a frame poking him in the spine, and also his wrists are starting to hurt. "Look, I'm just curious. What's so bad you can't show me?" He pauses.

"It's embarrassing." Stiles can feel his cheeks warming. "Didn't you have some awkward teenage phase that you grew out of and your parents kept—" and then Stiles remembers, fuck, fuck, _fuck_.

"No," Derek says. "Hey, it's—you don't have to—I'm sorry."

"You can see them," Stiles relents. "They're not that bad."

Derek takes the pile of photos from him and they sit down on the hardwood floor, leaning back against the wall, legs crossed and thighs brushing together. Stiles flexes his wrists while Derek spreads the photos out on the floor in front of them. "No," Derek says. "These are pretty bad."

"Ugh," Stiles says.

There's three pictures: Stiles at the state Science Bowl in 2004, Dad's fortieth birthday party, and Stiles and Scott at a Voltaire show with Stiles in a trench coat and Scott in a Green Day t-shirt and cutoffs. They're… pretty incriminating. Stiles used to wear a lot of eyeliner and black and clothing not particularly appropriate for any occasion. Mom probably would have teased him a lot.

"Scott's a good friend," Derek says after a minute.

"He's dressed up there," Stiles says. "He wore a band t-shirt."

Derek pats Stiles's knee. "You look better without the eyeliner."

"Thanks," Stiles says.

—

After they put the photos back in place, Stiles and Derek go back outside. Laura and Lydia are in the pool, splashing water at each other, and Allison and Danny are wandering around with sparklers. Scott's lying down on the slip 'n' slide; he might be asleep. Aside from Dad and Mrs. McCall, the adults—Stiles can't stop thinking of them that way, even though he's 24 and owns his own business—seem to have dispersed. "Is Allison sober enough to have fire?" Stiles asks his dad.

"I think so," Dad says. "Not sure any of you should be biking, though, so that's on Derek."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [ladyofthelog](http://ladyofthelog.tumblr.com) on tumblr and I'm sorry.


End file.
